German Poppy Seed Streusel Crumble Cake Recipe
Sorry friends if you are on a diet but the hubby is baking again today. This is a recipe that I’ve been wanting to share for a really long time. We’ve had this recipe since before my son was born, so about 15 years and I remember translating it into English for my husband.
Every time I go to Germany, I go to our local bakery and order their loaded “Mohnkuchen” and you just can’t get anything close to it here in the US. So this is about the closest recipe to it I have.
It’s so so good but unfortunately not gluten-free. My husband might try to come up with a gluten-free version yet. He’s tried once but it needs tweaking.
He baked this for my birthday and I took pictures of him making it for me.
In Germany, you use “Quark” for this recipe which is similar to sour cream and yogurt but we came up with a mixture of sour cream and ricotta. Quark is a little bit more bitter though which is why I love our mixture.
Germans use a lot of Vanillin Sugar for baking which you can find HERE but you can also use a mixture of sugar and vanilla beans which I have in my ingredients list. We stick with the German packages though.
I haven’t been able to find a large amount of poppy seeds required for this cake at the local grocery stores here. So I buy mine…wait take a guess…yup… Amazon. See the one I buy HERE.
Germans also cook and bake with a scale not cups. So we just bought a little scale (HERE) and use that for German recipes which you can see in the photos. Or you can just use an online converter like THIS and THIS
German Poppy Seed Streusel Crumble Cake Recipe (Mohnkuchen)
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Dough:
- 150g quark (my mixture of 2 parts ricotta and 1 part sour cream)
- 75g sugar
- 300g flour
- 6 tbsp milk
- 6 tbsp vegetable oil
- 3 tsp baking powder
- a pinch of salt
For the filling:
- 500ml milk
- 40g of butter
- 60g of semolina
- German Vanilla Sugar HERE (similar to ½ vanilla bean and 4 tbsp of sugar)
- 8 oz bag of poppy seeds HERE
- 6-8 tbsp of sugar (depending how sweet you like it)
- 2 eggs
- a sprinkle of cinnamon
For the streusels:
- 200g flour
- 100g butter (room temperature)
- 100g sugar
Preheat the oven to 375F
Start out by making the streusel so they can sit in the fridge while you make the rest of the cake:
Simply combine the butter, sugar, and flour in a bowl and knead it into a dough, and put it in the fridge.
Then it’s time for the bottom dough:
Mix the dough ingredients together. My husband likes to slowly mix in the flour and then knead it all to a soft dough.
We use a greased 9 x 13ish pan and spread the dough out into it which you can see below.
Then you need to move on to the poppy seed filling:
Heat up the milk and butter in a pot until it starts to boil, add in the semolina, the sugar, and the Vanillin Sugar, and let it start to boil again while stirring. Quickly remove it from the stove and let the mixture soak for 5 minutes.
After that, you can add the poppy seeds, cinnamon, and eggs.
Mix it really well to avoid clumps and spread everything over the dough.
(Some German bakeries add raisins to the poppy seed mixture but I hate that. When I go to a bakery I ask if the cake has raisins in it and if it does, I don’t buy it. I usually like raisins but not in my Mohnkuchen)
Now it’s time to add the streusels/crumbles. Take the dough out of the fridge and crumble it over the poppy seed filling like my husband is doing in the below photo.
It should look similar to the photo below.
Then out the pan in the 375F oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes. It should look similar to the browned cake below when done.
At the end dust it with powdered sugar and ENJOY!
YUM, my absolute favorite!
You have to try this one. It’s also one of my son’s favorite cakes. He also loves the Boston Banoffee Pie my hubby makes and which you can find HERE.
If you are into German cooking and traditions then check out my favorite German Christmas decorations, my favorite German wooden Christmas ornaments, and my other German decor showcased in a Christmas home tour from a previous year.
Tschüß.
Here are some more of my hubby’s baking recipes:
The photos will take you to see the posts.
Looks so delicious, I will definitely try it.
I’m so glad you will try it. Let me know what you think
Love poppy seeds thank you wil try this!
I love poppy seeds too. Let me know how you like it
I remember the first time my mother baked a mohnstrudel when I was little, I spit it out. It is definitely an acquired taste, but now I love it! In my mom’s recipe the mohn is ground. She has a European grinder but it takes the strength of a weightlifter to work that thing. I get a reasonable result using a nutribullet. My recipe cooks the mohn with milk and sugar and use a sweet yeast dough to make it a strudel. I’ve had your version in Germany though, and it is good, and easier – I will try it. Besten appetit!
The reason I like this one is because it does not have a yeast dough. I’ve never been a big fan of yeast doughs for pastries. As a kid I used to cut that part of the cake off and put it to the side ???? I hope you like it when you try to make it
my friend has a german exchange student who wanted to bake one of her recipes and it had quark… it could not be found anywhere! now i know how they can make it!
I’m glad you learned something 😉
This looks amazing – so wish I had a slice with my morning coffee! Happy Thursday!
Thanks and happy Thursday to you too.
This looks so good! I can’t wait to try it!! Also, you need to turn the photo of your husband looking up into the camera into a “Hey girl” meme 😀
LOL yes I should 😉
Yummy Julia! Definitely takes me back to my youth. I spent my childhood in Germany and love love all the cuisine! Seriously if you can share a schnitzel recipe that would bring tears to my eyes. 🙂
My dad just made Schnitzel when he was here. My son loves it. I also just bought “Leberkäse” at our local German store. It’s one of my favorites on a “Brötchen” 😉
I grew up in Chicago and our local bakery (Dinkles) made a similar coffee cake, but with whipped cream and streusel topping. I’ve never had anything similar, but after reading your recipe…I can see it was the dough that made the difference. Looks so yummy!
That sounds yummy too. I’ve never seen one with whipped cream filling and poppy seed topping.
this looks so good! my 4 year old walked by while I had it on my screen and said ‘Yum! lets make that!’ and I agree with her! 🙂
Haha that’s funny! You should try to make it. Some people love poppy seed and some hate it. I’d love to know what you think.
Thank you, I am going to makes for my wonderful German daughter-in-law.
I hope she likes it as much as I do.
Hello Julia,
What are your thoughts on using the canned poppy seed filling?
Sorry for the delayed response but I was on vacation. I have never tried or used the canned poppy seed filling. Let me know if it works if you try it.
I made this today. I used sour cream in place of quark. I also doubled the streusel topping. I used two cans of SOLO poppy seed filling and……… it is freaking AWESOME. I followed all other directions/ ingredients as noted in the recipe. It is not dry and super yummy. My go to recipe for poppy seed craving is the yeast strudel type but I wanted a more cake like experience. Maybe next time I’ll order the poppy seeds and really make it from scratch! So good…thanks.
I’m so glad you like it, Margaret! I was never a fan of the yeast doughs used in Germany for cakes growing up and always prefered other dough which is why I like this so much. And it’s always yummy to double up on Streusel, right?
I followed exactly but my poppy filling was very runny. It was not thick as the picture looks. I used Semolina Flour, is that the problem?
I actually have to ask my husband because he is the baker. He has made it many times and it was never runny. I’m sorry
What’s a g
What’s a ml
Hi Esther, since I am from Germany and this is a German recipe the g stands for grams and the ml for milliliters. Recipes measurements aren’t in cups, spoons and ounces in Germany.